Hey everyone! I just barely made it after grinding real hard for the past 24+ hours straight (Yes, I know, super unhealthy and shouldn’t be repeated ever again), but I thought I’d share my process in the form of a ‘Complete’ post instead of a WIP, like it should’ve been from the start, (Apparently, someone didn’t read the rules carefully enough). Anyways, I started Blender back in the 2.83 (Obvi) days, and have been using it on/off ever since. I’d consider this my 3rd “personal” project in all that time. Ever since the announcement of this challenge I wanted to really challenge myself and make a photorealistic/semi-stylized scene featuring a mecha instead of the tugboat and having all the concrete of Ian’s terrific scene be replaced by tons of foliage, similar to the post-apocalyptic concept art that floods Artstation on a daily basis.
I analyzed the scene and dissected the major components and wrote them down on a checklist of things that should be included or replaced by something similar, if I were to remix it in any way.
I remembered this artwork by Bryn Jones and thought of recreating this somehow, but after a short while, I came to the conclusion that someone as inconsistent as me would not be able to pull it off with my extremely limited skillset. So I just kinda abandoned it for a few days. It didn’t help that I didn’t have any other ideas for the scene, and that my wrists were hurting due to some minor medical issues.
Then I came across Polygon Runway’s tutorial of this cool stylized boat and it instantly revitalized my need to take part in the challenge.
Messed around with some things and had fun after quite a long time, and then I just kept on going.
I used some placeholder assets (Sorry/Thanks Ian) and learned how to use the Asset Library too!
And then slowly but surely, built up to this image that I’m really happy about. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever done, and I wish I could have detailed a bit more somehow, but I’m really proud that I managed to complete it in such a short time frame. I was quite surprised at how disciplined I was these past 2 days.
I obviously didn’t have enough time to learn how to use the Sketchfab editor or learn about texturing or baking, so I kinda botched it in the end. But this has been a really great contest to partake in, and I’m really happy that I got the chance to do so. Also, this is my first ever post in Blenderartists, so thanks for having me.
